Yordas Group plays an active part in the newly launched H2020 GRACIOUS Project

Published: 6 February, 2018

Global regulatory consultants, Yordas Group have taken the lead on the Stakeholder Engagement and Dissemination Work package for the H2020 GRACIOUS Project, which kicked-off in January 2018.

The GRACIOUS project will develop a highly innovative science based framework that supports the assessment of risk posed by the ever increasing array of nanomaterials on the market and under development. The framework will streamline the process for assessing their risk by logically grouping nanomaterials thereby allowing extrapolation between (read-across) nanomaterials and reducing the need to assess exposure to and toxicity on a case by case basis.

Yordas attended the project kick-off meeting, which was held in Edinburgh, UK on 22-23 January 2018, where members of the consortium discussed how the project goal was to be achieved and how to involve key partners in small, medium and large scale industries, as well as national and international policy makers and regulators.

Industry has the ability to modify the chemical and physical characteristics of materials at the nanoscale leading to a wide array of nanomaterials (NMs) varying in size, morphology and surface characteristics. Due to financial, time and ethical considerations, safety testing of every unique NM for their potential adverse effects is virtually impossible. For these reasons, more efficient ways to obtain safety information are needed. Yordas, along with 22 partners spanning Europe and the USA, are involved in developing the GRACIOUS framework which aims to account for those issues with the ultimate aim of streamlining the risk assessment process.

Underpinned by scientific hypotheses, the GRACIOUS framework will identify endpoints relevant to grouping and read-across. To generate the knowledge and data needed to identify and test these hypotheses Intelligent Testing Strategies (ITSs) will be developed to cover all domains of relevance for risk assessment:

Lifecycle environmental release and human exposure

What they are: physicochemical identity

Where they go: Environmental fate, uptake and toxicokinetics

What they do: human and environmental toxicity

The ITSs will reduce, refine and replace (where possible) the need for animal testing by promoting the use of modelling (e.g. in silico, fate, exposure), in vitro and cell-free tests.

Our scientific consultancy services benefit from the expertise of a team of chemists from a range of different backgrounds, both industrial and academic. Our company’s toxicologists and environmental scientists bring complementary skills to the team, allowing them to offer an integrated, multi-disciplinary technical service to our clients. We provide support for all the different stages of the product lifestyle, from research, route development and process scale-up to management waste.

For further details on any of our services contact our expert team on +44(0)1524 510278 or email info@yordasgroup.com.